graveyardsmash | TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

Entry tags:

test drive

TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

Welcome to the Ryslig Test Drive Meme! Below are a few prompts to get you started, but you may make up any prompt you desire! Please take a look at the navigation page for rules, setting information, and links to reserves and apps. Have fun!

SCENARIO ONE

You wake up in a dark ditch, the sky cloudy overhead. Dirt cakes into your cuts and scrapes. The air is clammy and damp, and it smells like rain.

You’re in a grave. And when you sit up to inspect the tombstone marking your spot, it has your name on it. Maybe the graves next to you have the names of familiar friends, family, acquaintances. Not all of them are open like yours are. RIP.

There’s a light dancing in the distance, and you hear the jingle-jangle of heavy keys, or worse still, the gravekeeper’s massive pitchfork or shovel. If you're lucky, you can sneak out beyond his notice, and get out alone. If not - you might find yourself on the wrong end of a shovel’s swing, or worse yet, tripping headfirst in front of a pair of monstrous eyes.

SCENARIO TWO

You've stumbled your way out of the graveyard, and you're promptly besieged by the overwhelming sights and sounds of the city. Cars honk at you to get out of the street, and strangers try not to look in your direction for too long. They see your dirty clothes and scraped faces, and pretend to busy themselves with something else. Rarely, a look of pity is cast your way.

But some people try to reach out. Enterprising citizens and those that hope to curry favor with the newcomers pass out new clothes and bundles of food, asking if you have a place to stay the night, wondering about the details of the world you came from. Some are even handing out pamphlets which vary in how helpful they are--"What To Expect When You're Expecting (To Turn Into A Monster)", "Wolpertinger: Fact or Fiction?", "100% ACCURATE MONSTER QUIZ ASSESSMENT: GUARANTEED TO PREDICT YOUR MONSTER!", and "Ryslig Law In A Nutshell".

Then there are the people who aren't happy to see you at all. Glares and silent, judging stares if you're lucky, torches and pitchforks attempting to drive you out of the town if you're not. You may need a friend to help you.

SCENARIO THREE

"Seek us out," the voice whispers in your head, and before you have time to question it you've found yourself in someplace entirely alien.

Maybe it's the Fog God's ghostly town of Dyster, where exultant followers dance around bonfires and sing their praises to the skies above. Maybe it's the Fourth God's arcade, with small robots wheeling about amidst the lights and colors of old pinball machines.

Only one thing is certain: you are not alone, in this sacred place.

SCENARIO FOUR

The time has come and you've found yourself becoming a monster. Is the change instant, or gradual? Are you familiar enough with monsters to know what's happening, or is it a complete shock? Does it fit you, or does it feel incongruous with your nature? Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

⭐️ live & in person!

Freddy yawns.

Which is weird. He's never had the compulsion to yawn before. What would possibly be the use of yawning at a party, or during a show? Eh, maybe they figured it would make him seem more organic for the kids. He doesn't really feel like complaining; it feels kind of nice, actually...other than an ache in his jaw...to take in air into his chest compartment, to feel an unfamiliar calm wash over him.

The moisture collecting at the edges of his eyes are weird, though. Might be new oil, applied to his eye sockets by some new apprentice's inexperienced hand. Ah, good on them...for finding someone new. Well...maybe.

Freddy sits up, motivating himself for the next show. He jolts, however, when his face falls off and clatters into his lap.

That apprentice...must have a really unsteady hand, he thinks, as he stares at the dark fiberglass casting backside of a cartoon bear head. He casts his eyes up and lets out a thankful sigh that this didn't happen in front of a bunch of onlooking kids. It does mean that he has to find someone to fix it before someone ends up traumatized. His personal record for lawsuits is empty, as far as he's aware, and he wants to keep it that way.

When he hears footsteps, he automatically assumes it's help. He can't know exactly what kind of help, though, so he holds up one cartoony bear-paw in front of what he thinks is his exposed endoskeleton face to prevent someone from getting spooked. What he's actually hiding is the face of an apparently totally normal, pale-skinned human man, around his late 30s, with vibrant blue eyes and very long, coily blonde hair.

"Hello there!" he calls out, in an entirely friendly and well-enunciated voice. "Do you have a screwdriver? My face plate seems to have fallen off. Would you help me put it back on, please?"

⭐️ networking!

< ScrewLoose > Hello everyone!
< ScrewLoose > I have a strange question.
< ScrewLoose > I need someone to teach me how to perform self-maintenance.
< ScrewLoose > Before I came here, I was a being that did not need to do things like "bathe" and "shave". My maintenance was always performed by someone else.
< ScrewLoose > I thought that they would be fairly simple tasks, but I am currently in the supermarket aisle and taking in various conflicting information on container instructions.
< ScrewLoose > If someone could provide me a tutorial, or perhaps a glossary, it would be greatly appreciated.

Souda isn't entirely expecting anyone to address him; being a scawy pink gargoyle usually keeps people off his back. But he's a sucker for anyone who tries to get his attention nicely, as deep down past the forced terrorism, he is still just a very nice boy who likes that he can walk the streets in the fog and actually meet people.

The crocodile-faced younger man tilts his head at Freddy with his question, perhaps more surprised that Freddy couldn't be asking a better person about faceplates— but when Souda gets a better look at Freddy he's just.. confused. This is a man in a bear suit.

...A fiberglass bear suit?

That's kind of disappointing, as he cannot fix human faces.

"Hey, uh, what are you talking about? Your mask come loose, dude?"

His voice sounds.. very audibly shaky though. Bears. Why's it gotta be bears? Why's the theme bears here??

He's trying to give Freddy the benefit of the doubt— he's not monobear— but the mascot vibe is.....

...Skeevy.

That sounds like an adult's voice. Okay, that's good. But an adult who doesn't understand what Freddy is? That's weird.

Now that he thinks about it...where even is he, anyway?

"It is not a mask," he cheerfully corrects. "It is a part of my body. I do not want to spook anyone with my...well..."

A picture's worth a thousand words, right? Freddy lowers his fiberglass-clad hand, revealing a face with striking, angular features with mild freckles. Even bare-faced, his character-like appearance makes him look like he should be on a stage headbanging instead of talking like a narrated children's book. He raises his eyebrows, assuming that this only enhances the bare-eyeballed effect of an endoskeleton face without its costume.

"I do not want to scare any of the kids," he says gently, as if this explains anything, as he holds out the face plate to Souda. "By the way...where are we? I do not recognize this place."

Edited 2022-01-25 18:42 (UTC)

Souda takes the faceplate from Freddy, tilting his head, the spines on the back of his neck raising to signify his confusion. He considers what Freddy has said and lets a snort out, tiny tufts of pink embers escaping his nostrils.

"Course you don't," he explains, turning the mask over in his hands and holding it up while he speaks. He's got enough experience here in Ryslig to draw conclusions, though he didn't realize until now that a whole ass robot could become a person here.

It has him both tingling with excitement and fear. He is meeting a robot! A real robot!

...But the robot is a bear. God damnit.

"You looked like this, yeah?" he asks. "You don't look like that anymore. You're not exactly where you belong, pal. This is Ryslig— well, I mean, the city is Bavan. But whatever whole— world, you were in?

You're not home, anymore."

A laugh escapes him.

"And you're sure as hell not scary, my dude."

There's a long pause while Freddy digests this information.

Well, yeah, he's not..."where he belongs". He hasn't been where he belongs ever since he stepped foot out of the Pizzaplex. And of course he doesn't look like his face, because he doesn't have his face! But to say that he's not scary...

And, more importantly, the inexplicable sense of relief he feels when he's told that...

Silently, one blue-painted claw retracts to touch his face. Instead of cold machinery, his touch lands on a soft, malleable surface.

In a flash, his new biological physiology hits him like a sledgehammer. His blood goes cold. A writhing, rhythmic sensation fills his chest and echoes through his ears. Frigid air cycles in and out of his mouth, drawing its surface tight and dry. The corners of his vision go dark. But none of this comes with any klaxons or warning messages; he feels like he's going to shut down, but can't.

Part of him wishes he would because this is way too much stimulus to take in at once.

It's not so much the change of everything, but rather that he's automatically assuming the worst-case scenario: that at some point, he blacked out and lost control, and ended up taking some innocent person's nice warm meat-coat for a test drive.

"I k- I- k-ki-..."

He'd love to be able to finish that sentence, but that pesky cold air flow keeps interfering with his voice box.

Souda's not used to being the calm one in front of the one freaking out— usually, the shoe is on the other foot. This time he can see what it looks like, and on such a human face it's... surprising. But Souda doesn't have the context for Freddy's fear, and instead assumes it's something else; the terror of being something you weren't before. That makes sense, to him, and makes him feel a little bad for speaking so carelessly.

"Hey, hey, hey," Souda raises his claws (and along with them, the mask) in an attempt at a comforting gesture.

"Don't— uh, it's okay! I know it's probably a big jump, right? But you're gonna be fine, I promise!"

Well, fine is a little generous, but maybe now's not the time to drop the M word.

"Just, uh, t-take a... deep breath?"

Don't panic. Don't panic.

Freddy's finding out that's the epitome of "easier said than done." Simultaneously, he realizes that this is panic, but that still doesn't add up. If he really just took someone's body, it certainly wouldn't have organs in it anymore, and he wouldn't know how to interface with them in a way to keep them working so...vividly.

Only the quietest voice in his head manages to tell him this. The rest of his brain is busy doing a six-minute mile. Most of Souda's words fall on somewhat deaf ears, but he hears take a deep breath. So he tries, and despite never having a set of lungs before, manages to take control enough to do just that. A second one goes through without a hitch. It feels nice. A wave of sorts crawls down from his shoulders to his hips, down to his toes.

Freddy isn't entirely recovered, but he gathers enough of himself to look down at his hands, palms up. He uses one to pinch the palm and back of the hand with the other, pulls firmly but gently, and it pulls away from his wrist like a piece of carapace being plucked off. Freddy curls and flexes the human fingers that were revealed, surprised to find them with a pinky undertone, full of life.

With this flesh hand, he reaches up and touches that squishy face again. Warm, warmer than he had imagined humans to feel. A nose of pliable cartilage. Cheek and chin full of hard, unyielding bone. Squishy eyeballs--oh, uh, actually, that kind of hurts.

His hand falls to his lap and he stares vacantly into the distance.

"I have become...a human," he says, breathless yet full of too much breath. He finds it within himself to force it out. "How is this...possible?"

Souda really is trying to do his best not to look like some total geek watching a robot find itself alive, analyzing every one of Freddy's movements and comparing them to what he knows of robots, building the case for what he already wants to believe. He is not doing a good job of not looking like that. Luckily, his overeager interest falls to the background of Freddy's focus, considering it seems the bear is busy, you know, Experiencing.

And then Freddy presents Souda with a question he can answer confidently.

"Oh! Yeah, like I said! This is a whole different world," he starts, "So, like, there's magic here, I guess. The fog here's some kind of god-like entity with magic, it, uh, she? Yeah, she has... magic."

Souda... kinda talks fast, and segues right into his next point.

"It turns things that weren't human into humans, though, I think it's usually humans showing up. There's this kid here that was a hedgehog, though."

Magic, a god...yeah, alright. It's as good an explanation as any, in all honesty, because what else is going to explain the impossible other than...the impossible?

Plus he comes from a world where hauntings are, like, super regular, so he's not going to sit here and whine about having the wool pulled off of his wet and squishy eyes about magic. If he wasn't freaked out so much right now, Freddy would be excited about the concept of a fantasy adventure.

Except...

Freddy stops touching his face to politely gesture in Souda's direction.

"You are still not human," he observes with friendly curiosity. "Why did they let you keep your shell? --Although..."

He tilts his head to the side and commands his ears to do a thoughtful wiggle. They don't.

"It does not appear that you have any seams or joints. Did the magic simply turn you organic?"

That's right: Freddy has been assuming Souda is also an animatronic this entire time.

Souda's jaw drops, giving him that perfect possum V-shape for a moment, as he processes what Freddy is implying about him. But— it makes sense, that a bear bot would see him as something similar, too, right? It's just, sometimes despite everything, Souda forgets that he... looks like this. It's surprising, even now, when other people don't perceive him as the physical person he remembers being.

Man!!

He knew he looked like some kind of theme park mascot!! How much more proof can one get than a mascot robot thinking you're one of them!!!

"Y-yeah, about that," Souda groans a little, scratching his neck. Man... breaking this news to a robot feels kind of mean. He's already having trouble getting used to being a gargoyle— he can't imagine having to change to something organic and then to something different so soon after that.

"I was a human, when I got here. I mean, I was a human my whole life before I got here!" Just to clarify. "So the fog, uh, didn't have to do that first step. It just skipped to turning me into a monster, instead."

"More magic," he asserts. Yep, checks out. "I see!"

Okay. Yeah. This makes sense. He could get behind this! The word "monster" doesn't hit any red flags for Freddy, because that's just a fantasy thing, right? Even friendly goblins and orcs would be called "monsters".

He swallows down the last of his panic and clears his throat. "Oh. I'm terribly sorry, my friend. I seem to have forgotten to introduce myself," he says, as he extends a freshly exposed fleshy hand. "My name is Freddy Fazbear. Just 'Freddy' is fine."

A warm smile comes naturally to him, despite not technically having moved in such a way before.

Ah, Souda loves it when people take his explanations simply. He doesn't understand it much more than that surface level, anyway—

But, the carefree as ever dragon is eager to shake Freddy's hand and make a new (previously robotic) friend. What more is there to look forward to in a place like this? Souda matches Freddy's smile with a much toothier one.

"Freddy, huh? Nice to meetcha," he responds with that shake, "I'm Kazuichi Souda, now-local mechanic. You-- can call me Souda, though."

He's a little used to people having a bit of trouble with the first name, and he's used to being called by his last name anyway.

"You— You really were a robot, before, right?"

It's fascinating just how much tactile feedback Freddy gets now. He's able to know that this was a firm handshake instead of just hoping for the best. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Souda! It is a shame that it was not on better terms."

It really doesn't sound like a complaint. If anything, he sounds mildly amused. Freddy lets go of Souda's hand and finally pushes himself out of the casket he woke up in -- and thank goodness he'd already gotten his explanation from Souda about the whole becoming-human thing, because that would have been damning evidence otherwise.

"Yes, I am a robot," he answers. He plants big, goofy bear-feet on the ground and wobbles for a moment, finding that human feet made with shockingly sensitive and delicate balancing mechanisms and aren't just platforms to hold the rest of the body up. He steadies fairly quickly, but only into an awkward wide stance. He's not impossibly tall, but easily more than a head's height above most average people.

"Well...was a robot. More commonly, I would be called an animatronic. Automata would be fair game as well. Truthfully...I have no preference for what I am called."

Souda isn't exactly the tallest guy, either; at 5'6, he was even the second shortest guy in his graduating class. SO he cranes his neck up to Perceive Freddy, and that moment is pretty formative in dispelling his suspicions and fears.

Sure, animatronics can't be trusted, especially not bears. But this particular bear has a smile as bright as Souda's old classmate Nekomaru, and has the imposing build to match. They have just the same vibe, as far as Souda can see, and suddenly he isn't associating Freddy with the Monokumas as much as he starts to think of the robot body Nekomaru'd ended up with ~~and that Souda had to perform an autopsy on. Oops.~~

"A whole animatronic, yeah? Man, you are gonna have a wild time," Souda comments, then squints as if maybe for half a moment it's occurred to him that might be an insensitive thing to say— but the realization passes just as quickly as it came in favor of more questions that come to mind.

"What kind of animatronic? Like, for a theme park?"

If it was offensive to anyone, it clearly doesn't land as such with Freddy, who doesn't even give it pause.

"You have the right idea!" he says, all smiles. "Though I have not heard anyone refer to the Mega Pizzaplex as a theme park...but I think it comes close! Perhaps if it had more rides..."

He speaks of it fondly, but then reconsiders. His smile fades.

"It will be...a while until they consider such upgrades, I'm afraid."

"Yeah, y'know, I dunno what makes something count as a theme park or not," Souda murmurs, scratching his neck. He takes note of what Freddy's said last, though, and wonders aloud—

"What happened before ya left?"

Freddy lets out a disquieted sigh, the gravel of his voice coming through it. Only now does he break eye contact, casting his gaze downward.

"It is a...long story."

If Souda hasn't heard of Fazbear, there's just too much context to fill him in first to make any of the details make sense.

"Something bad happened to my friends. My bandmates. They became...dangerous."

Freddy pauses. That's how it started, but it's not how it ended. The pain in his voice is all too obvious.

"When we got to the bottom of it, it was...too late for other options."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM: JANUARY/FEBRUARY

Glamrock Freddy | Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: graphic description of a panic attack

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

ah... sdr2 spoilers ig... ancient spoilers

no subject

no subject

no subject